A multi-spectral and 3D photography blog

3D- Virginia Falls

So, as I mentioned last post, I also took some 3D photos of Nahanni National Park’s Virginia Falls. There’s not much else to say about the falls that I didn’t cover previously, so on to the photos.

Waterfalls are tricky to photograph in 3D. The water moves rapidly(and so does the mist), which means if your timing is off by even a fraction of a second, the water will look slightly ‘off’. As my cameras aren’t synchronized, I have to press both buttons at the exact same time. I couldn’t do it this time, so most of these photos have that problem to some extent.

The other issue with Nahanni Falls is that it is large and wide. my usual camera separation(about 10 centimetres apart) didn’t show any 3D effect, and even separating the cameras by a 1/2 metre(as in the next two photos) doesn’t show much effect. I did try using a timer and having another person hold a camera, but as I didn’t want to get too close to the edge, these pictures didn’t turn out the best either (with exaggerated 3D, foregrounds can be very distracting). These two photos were my best, but still not great.

The 3D effect isn’t very visible in the first photo; in the second photo, it is there, but the foreground is distracting. This is the problem I mentioned above- The tree sapling in the foreground is visible in 3D, but you can’t focus your eyes on both it and the waterfall at the same time. If I crop the second photo, it is easier to see the 3D effect of the rock pillar, but most of the actual water is cut off(and as it is a waterfall, there isn’t really a point to cropping it this way):

To reiterate the problems- the rock pillar is far enough away that the foreground is a problem when I hold the cameras apart, and I need to take the photos a fair distance apart in a fairly close time frame. There isn’t an effective way to take the photos at the same time, so I’ll settle for a couple seconds apart. I’d need a way to remove the foreground from the field of view, take photos a with a significant distance between them, and move quickly between camera shots. Luckily, I had a way to do that:

Yep, I had an excellent view from the plane(I was in the yellow), and got some much better photos of Virginia Falls from the air. Before landing, the plane circled the falls a couple times, so I had good views from a distance, approaching along the South Nahanni River…

… and from directly above the falls. If you look above the falls in the above photo, you can faintly see the boardwalk along the edge. This leads to the campground and ranger station, which is also a dock for the float planes.

It was a great day to see the waterfall from the air; the clouds came as we landed, and cleared up again as we left. Thanks again to Simpson Air for the excellent trip through the park!